I often think about this problem and I keep returning to the thought that maybe we're close to understanding how consciousness works, maybe these LLMs are actually getting us closer to understanding this thing.

But some people are going to be disappointed because it will remove all doubt about how un-special humans are. We're just a bunch of neurons, which are made out of physics.

But I'm not disappointed. This stochastic parrot is amazed! Nature has created a system which is able to understand itself! That's absolutely incredible.